


Three Gentle Tricks for an All Hallows Eve

by BardicRaven



Series: Retail Magicks [9]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Coffee Shops, Gen, Libraries, Orphans, Talking Trees, Vampire Queen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-02 11:03:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16303952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BardicRaven/pseuds/BardicRaven
Summary: Three views of worlds vastly different than our own:1. A disgraced vampire queen takes the nightshift at a 24 hour a day StarStags coffeeship and makes a second carreer for herself slinging coffee to the haunters of the midnight hour.2. A tree takes in a group of orphaned children, and the eldest gets an education in alternative worldviews.3. A transdimensional libararian runs the Reading Room  up at the Guide's Bar.





	1. Gentle Trick the First: Overnight at StarStags

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WritLarge](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritLarge/gifts).



Late night caffeine kept her sane. Working at the local StarStags Coffee gave her an income. And plenty of time to decide what she was going to do with the rest of her vampiric life, now that That Impudent Pup as she called him, refusing to acknowledge him by his proper name, had taken over her realm and her people, casting her out into the cold cruel mundane world without a look back, or even a thank you for having ruled well and taught him everything he knew.

They loved her here, because she wanted the third-shift that few others did. She liked the quiet, the night. And the darkness that served to keep both her secret and her health.

Besides, the customers that came in during those hours were… unique, to say the least. From the nurses and support staff coming from the local reaching hospital for a late-night dose of fancy caffeine to the students at the rest of the university coming to study and do research away from roommates and dorm distractions to the collection of others, their only commonalities a love of things caffeinated and an unusual outlook on life, late nights at the StarStags was never dull.

And if, every now and again, she missed what she had had, what she had been, well, she stuffed it down inside her apron’s pocket as she went to serve the next customer. Now was now and that was all that mattered, all that really was. Then? That was a concept for theoreticians and philosophers, and she’d never been either.

“Welcome to StarStags! How may I help you?” was her mantra, the words that kept the cold world at bay. And, sometimes, every now and again, when she was hungry and someone needed her, there’d be a little extra service in the back, an exchange of euphoria for blood, and both parties would walk away the happier for it.

She was pleased to learn that her StarStags was one of the most productive in the country, tho’ whenever someone from corporate would come and try to ask her for her secrets she’d always demur and say she didn’t know.

Which was a lie, of course. The reason was simple: when you were a Disgraced Vampire Queen, working as a Barista in your local StarStags, there were a lot of talents you brought to the party, that were yours and yours alone, not to be duplicated by somebody from corporate with more suits than brains.

But that wasn’t how the game was played. So she laughed and she demurred and told them just enough of what they wanted to hear that they went away again, satisfaction on both sides – theirs for having gotten at least some of the words they wanted to hear, and her, for having gotten another fat raise and job-security.

Win-win-wing at the StarStags. Not bad for an overnight coffee-slinger, she thought.

“Hi! Welcome to StarStags. How may I help you?”


	2. Gentle Trick the Second: The Tree in the Woods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, a talking tree in the woods can provide both shelter and an education.

How the children became orphaned does not matter to our story. Whether they were abandoned because of poverty, left bereft from a carriage wreck that killed their parents and the horses and left them the sole survivors, or ran away from a dying city devasted by the disease that killed their parents matters little.

What is important is what they found when they’d reached the safety of the woods.

* * *

 What they found was a large tree, so large that it took them many steps to get round it. In the center of one side, the trunk gaped open, a doorway they did not hesitate to enter. In this they were fortunate, that no other creature had gotten there befor them, or at least none of any size. There was a rustling and a settling from up above them, but nothing flew down to attack them, and right then, that was enough.

They looked around, saw no signs of anything else large living there and turned to one another.

“Do we stay here?” asked the oldest.

“We’ve no place else to go,” said the middle and the youngest said nothing, only looked fearfully up at their older siblings, still in shock over what had happened.

“All right then,” the eldest said. “We’ll stay here. It’s shelter and it’s hidden. It will do for now, until we can find a better.”

And with that, they suited deed to word and began to place their meager belongings around the tree.

It wasn’t until late that night, when they’d all retreated inside the tree, setting the eldest as a watch, when they heard the voice inside their head.

{Welcome. I’m glad you chose to stay here.}

“Who… who said that?” the eldest said into the dark.

{I did. You’re sitting inside me.}

“The tree?” Shock now, the shock of discovering the world wasn’t quite the way you’d always known it, rather than the shock of finding out that it was exactly the way you’d always feared it.

{Is that what you moving-ones call me? Then, yes, the tree.}

“Why… how… you’re talking to me.”

{Well, yes, I suppose I am. We trees have to have some way of communicating with each other. We are the planted-ones after all. We don’t move around like you moving-ones do.}

“But… how is this even possible?”

{Does it matter? We’re speaking together. That’s the important thing.}

“I suppose.” The eldest grew silent, thinking. Finally, “Do you mind us staying here? I mean, before, we were just looking for a place to stay. But now that I know you talk, it seems like I should ask.”

{As long as you don’t harm me, I don’t see why not.} The tree paused, a moment of reflection that sounded like the wind shaking leaves. {After all, you’re not the first moving-ones to stay here with me.}

“Oh? You’ve sheltered other people before?”

{Yes. All the time.} Another pause, another rustling of leaves. {But they didn’t look like you.}

“What did they look like?” The eldest was intrigued by the conversation, and it helped to pass the long night away.

{They have soft coverings all over their bodies – mostly the color of autumn leaves, except for the noisy-ones, who have all kinds of colors on them. They mostly live up in the branches tho’. Not on the ground, like you are.}

The eldest sat there for a moment, confused. Then as they thought, it came to them. A mix of gratitude and sorrow. “Oh, you mean squirrels and robins and stuff. I thought you said people.”

{They are people.}

The eldest snapped, “No, they’re not. People have clothes and live in houses and...” and suddenly, the day got to be too much and the tears began to fall.

{Are you well-watered?}

The eldest looked up, snuffling. “Wha… what?”

{Do you need sunshine? Rain? Dirt?} the tree asked. {You suddenly seem to be ill-nourished.}

“N...no, I’m all right.” They looked around, at their sleeping siblings, at the trunk of the tree around them. “It’s just different, that’s all. I’m not used to living in the forest, talking with a tree.”

{I’m not used to talking with one of the moving-ones. Does that help?}

“It does, actually,” the eldest said after a moment. “I don’t know why, but it does.”

And with that, the two fell back into the silence of the night, and a partnership that would last the children into their adulthood began.


	3. Gentle Trick the Third – The Reading Room at the Guide’s Bar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Reading Room of the Guide's Bar holds all the books and all the stories of all the people who come to the Guide's Bar.
> 
> Therefore, the Reading Room needs a librarian.
> 
> A Transdimensional Librarian.

There’s a reading room at the Guide’s Bar, if you go back and to the right. It’s at the end of the meeting rooms, far enough away from the bar that you can find yourself a quiet nook to read in, but still part of it, so that it takes part in the happenings of all the beings that come there.

There’s a being that lives there, cataloging all the books that come in to the reading room, library really, for any place with that big of a collection of books is a library, no matter the size of the actual room the books are held in.

Before you ask, it’s not so much that it’s bigger on the inside than the outside, but rather that not everything is there all the time. The things you need and desire are there, no matter who you are and what you need or desire in the way of reading material.

At any rate, this being lives there and makes sure that everything is there when it is needed and storied/stored carefully away when it is not.

You may or may not ever see them if you go to the reading room, but the results of their work are always there.

And all the more difficult because one of the things of the reading room is that it contains all the books and stories of all the beings that have come or will come to the Guide’s Bar – all of them that have been or will be written, which is where it gets interesting. You see, time has less meaning here than most – that the transdimensional part of things after all – and that leads to the temporal seeming-impossibilities, all of which need to be codified and cataloged, just as at any other library in more mundane surroundings.

They take no pay for their work, other than the satisfaction of a job well done. And really, what better satisfaction would it be for a librarian than to have access to all the writings ever done, by a good number of the species of a galaxy?

None.

And that is why they do it.


End file.
